The Microsoft Company is really great that it has created such very powerful computer software known as the Microsoft Excel. Excel has a wide variety of useful functions that can be used in various ways, either by nonprofessional or even by the experts. The Excel functions offer lots of benefits to the user, whether for business, mathematical or financial use. This computer software can perform complex function that helps people make their job easier. Although most users utilize Excel for its simple functions, it still features numerous complex functions that would benefit especially those professionals in their respective specializations.

Maybe, some of you import or copy text from other applications and paste it to your Excel spreadsheet. Then, you found out that the text that’s been imported contains distracting spaces among its words. Suddenly, you would ask yourself, “Is there an Excel function that can fix the irregularities in the word spacing of any particular text?” The answer to that question is yes. Microsoft Excel also features a function known as TRIM function, which is utilized to remove those distracting spaces that can cause irregularities in your data. To learn more about this TRIM function, read on this article because it provides you the description of a TRIM function, steps on how to use it in some versions of Excel and some examples that can help to gain knowledge about this function.

Overview of a TRIM Function Meant for Microsoft Excel

If you have received, imported or pasted a text into your Excel spreadsheet which contains disturbing spaces, the Excel’s TRIM function will assist you to eliminate them. These spaces will make your data quite unprofessional. Aside from this, these spaces will interrupt when you attempt to locate duplicate values in your data since incorrect spaces will distort the results.

In Microsoft Excel, TRIM function been utilized to eliminate the entire spaces from its text. But there is an exception: the sole word spacing inside the words of the content is removed. This TRIM function’s very useful especially when you need to eliminate extra spaces between the texts that you imported from other applications. The formula required for TRIM function:

=TRIM(“text”)

Wherein, its “text” argument refers to the text or content with irregular spaces which needs to be eliminated. Always remember that a text argument must be enclosed in double quotations.

To learn more about TRIM function, here is an example. “Hello World” is contained in cell B8 and you wish to eliminate the extra spaces from its content. Then TRIM function formula should be entered like this:

=TRIM(“Hello World”)

After doing that, you will notice that the extra spaces from its text are eliminated and what’s left is sole word spacing among the words.

Alternatively, you can enter in the formula the cell reference instead of using the actual text. For instance, if you prefer to eliminate the extra spaces from text contained in cell B8, then TRIM function formula should be entered like this:

=TRIM(B8)

For a better understanding on how to utilize a TRIM function, this article provides you a detailed procedure that you can utilize in Microsoft Excel 2007 and 2003.